Monday, 8 September 2008

A week before I was forced to endure the disdain of Dr Payne’s inspirational needling, it was time to turn the spotlight on my shame. So I made an appointment to see a male doctor. Let’s call him Dr Singh.

Really though, choosing to go into medicine at all is bad enough, but who in their right mind would choose to specialise in proctology? Not that Dr Singh did specialise in proctology of course. He’s probably something of an all-rounder. But today he was being forced to wear his proctologist’s hat. A small brown number with a shocking pink lining.

So I went in there and I sat down and I told him about my painful, bloody anus. Then I apologised. I said, ‘It can’t be pleasant. You know. All this… business.’ He kind of ignored me, maybe gave the tiniest of shrugs, maybe not. He then asked me to pull down my trousers and my underpants and to lie down on the gurney-type thing on my side and draw my knees up to my chest. Then, and there’s no other way of phrasing this, he raped me.

Actually, there are an infinite number of ways of phrasing it, and it would be tough to find one less suitable. It’s obviously incredibly crass of me to compare what took place between Dr Singh and my back door to any kind of sexual abuse. I apologise. It was however, the first time that anything which was not intended to bring me, or at least someone else, pleasure, had ever been inside me. And it really was the opposite of pleasure. It stayed with me for days too, this sensation, a palpable echo of his blunt, untender digit, burrowing away like he was foraging for truffles.

Then, when he was quite done, he said the strangest thing to me. He said, ‘I was looking for fishes.’

I was surprised. ‘Did you find any?’ I asked.

He shook his head. ‘No, you would have gone off like a rocket if I’d found any.’

I was confused. Were there really tiny brown bream living in my bottom which, when tickled with the tip of an inquisitive finger, caused internal combustion so powerful that my entire body could be propelled into space? Why hadn’t I heard about this before?

When I expressed my bewilderment, Dr Singh smilelessly explained that the fishes he sought were in fact fissures, or, if you prefer, which frankly I don’t, cracks in the anal tissue. (Bless you.)

Jesus. I feel sick even talking about all of this.

Let’s see if a little rhyme won’t dilute some of the horror.

A scowling doctor showed me love.Let’s call him Dr Singh. And with one hand in latex glove,He pushed a finger in my ring. No truffle troves were found inside, No treasure, loaves or fissures, No miracles of any kind,Just piles and dirty dishes.

Eh? No. I fear no amount of winsome poesy can wipe this blog entry clean. Let’s just get it over with.

I’ve got piles. The disease of stretched mothers and desiccated old men.

Joy.

Singh asked me about my diet. I gave him a brief history. He told me to eat more greens and fibre. He also prescribed a tube of pile-zapping foam, with an applicator, to be taken internally twice a day and once again ‘after each movement’. I wasn’t keen on Dr Singh, and not just for what he did to me. I didn’t like his choice of language either. Movement. Poppycock. What a singularly inappropriate word to use when discussing one’s bowels. It brings music to the act of defecation and makes it sound positively creative, crafted. As if the morning after St Patrick’s Day, the lavatories of the world are alive with symphonies, every sweaty evacuation an Ode to Joy.

Call it what you will, Singh, for me it’s just one more dirty step toward death, one more stinking bag of body-refuse closer to oblivion, and that it must now come tainted with bright blood and agony, then coated in chemical foam, frankly disgusts me.

Wow, I’m learning a lot today. I’d never actually heard of the mung bean before, Melissa. Now I know that it is also known as the green bean, the mung, the moong, the mash bean, the munggo or monggo, the green gram, the golden gram and the green soy. I also know that it is the chief ingredient in something called ‘mooncake’. Mmmmmm, mooncake. I have an overwhelming urge to try it.

Gullybogan, what an unusual name. Apparently, yes. And the pain has already gone. There’s still a little blood on occasion – what you might call minor spotting – but they’re not nearly as bothersome anymore. Do you suffer?

You shoulda had him check your prostate while he was at it and do a baseline PSA. Get your money's worth since his finger was up your butt anyway.

I'm really glad to hear that all you had was piles. I was holding my breath until the final verdict.

I must say that I am quite proud of you as men go. Most of them would rather die of liver cancer, colon cancer, or prostate cancer than let someone actually help them with preventative and maintenance health care.

Don't shoot the messenger, it's right there in the mortality charts at your local insurance company.

If you like de Bernieres, "Corelli's Mandolin" has a pretty good diet suggestion for piles - tomatoes, parsley and garlic. Your breath will smell like a Greek peasant's, but your your bottom should perk up a bit.

I'm fortunate to not have suffered from bum grapes myself. But then I'm a good boy who eats his veggies and at least four bits of fruit a day. And I have blissful evacuations, me. I fart like a swamp-creature, mind you, but that's neither here nor there.

This post is beyond honest, it's fab!I don't know why adults choose proctology either, my brain can't comprehend it but I prayed I wouldn't be referred to one after a recent GP checkup after experiencing a weird sensation 'down there'. I didn't have piles, thank Christ, but the feeling you have when a doctor peers into your coin slot is like nothing else. I thought I'd be speaking in tongues by the end of it. It was worse than all the viva examinations I experienced.

Hahahaha, I laughed very hard at the poem. I'm glad it's only piles. My ex-flatmate had piles and she called them her "grapes". As in "Ooooooh, me grapes!!!" I'm not grateful for the mental image I got from that.

Hello. Sorry for my delay in commenting here, but I'm all caught up now.

If you are chasing more fibre, get out the big guns. At risk of ...

Oh hell, look, I have a shitting problem myself, so I know a bit about shit, now. And I am very lazy when it comes to food and have found the fastest way to fibre is to eat it first thing in the morning in the form of bran. Not bran flakes, but Just Bran (like All Bran). I have two weatabix and I pour a mountain of bran on top of it (and some sugar) and it takes me almost an hour to eat it because it is SO BORING. When I started doing this every day, it was hard to stick to. Each mouthfull was a speacial level of boring hell. But then I started to shit properly, like clockwork, and easily. And that feeling, that feeling of shitting properly in the morning is a special kind of bliss. I have gotten used to the bran and frankly, it has other upshots. It really fills you up, so now I last until lunch, perhaps with a glass or two of water. It's after lunch that everthing goes down hill. But that's OK, because I now know I am always going to have a lovely shit in the morning. Fab way to start the day.

See how much I love you? I am willing to tell you about my shit. Let it never be doubted.

Oh Bête. It's been ten years since I felt the foraging latex finger, and you brought it all back. I know precisely what you mean about feeling violated, but I'm very impressed that you went to the doctor. I was worried about you. How weird is that, I was worried about a complete stranger's arse. My chap is having cancer tests at the mo, and I really really hope he turns out to just have piles or something. Can you get piles in your neck?

I've done the pile ointment after surgery and I am now a huge fan of it as a pain reliever on pretty much every hurty area. Except in my mouth; I haven't tried that yet, although I must confess that I seriously considered it for a moment the other day when I could only drink liquids because the inside of my mouth was so sore. Don't ask.

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